Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Meacher Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, as I was saying, these amendments relate to Clauses 13, 14 and 22, the introduction of work-related requirements and the claimant commitment. The drivers of some of the work-related requirements, or indeed no work-related requirements, depend on whether the claimant has limited capability for work and/or work-related activities. These concepts are, of course, familiar to us from ESA deliberations, and are to be imported into universal credit under Clause 38. We will debate that in due course when we reach those clauses. The definitions are aligned to the provisions of Clause 12, and the additional amounts payable under that clause.

Amendment 51CAC seeks to ensure that the claimant commitment provided for by Clause 14 should be not only a record of a claimant’s responsibilities but a statement of the responsibilities of the Secretary of State with regard to the claimant. Amendment 51CCA is in similar vein and requires the claimant commitment to include a statement of the Secretary of State’s responsibilities and details of how the claimant can appeal the contents of the commitment. A similar proposition was advanced in the other place and received short shrift, but given the Minister’s clear commitment to transparency and to the universal credit actually changing attitudes, we are interested directly on these issues.

We had understood that there was a consensus around the proposition that welfare benefits systems should involve both rights and responsibilities for claimants. Those responsibilities clearly encompass compliance with work and work-related activity requirements and the rights obviously include, but are surely not limited to, receipt of relevant benefits. Much of the support for claimants will come via the work programme in which the Government are investing heavily and seem committed to providing personalised support to individuals. A black-box approach gives a framework for that flexibility, but not of itself individualised assurance to claimants. What contractual obligations will providers have to spell out for individual programmes and communicate this to the claimants? Although we accept that the incentivised payments structure will provide encouragement not to abandon the hardest to help—a point that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, focused on—the obligation to be clear on what support would be provided should surely reinforce this. Of course, not all claimants will enter the work programme, or at least for a while, so there should be an obligation on Jobcentre Plus staff to particularise their side of the bargain.

It is fine having general customer charters, but they are no substitute for setting out what the Secretary of State will commit to in respect of individual claimants. Incidentally, could the Minister take this opportunity to take us briefly through the claimant journey, as it is now envisaged—those who will or will not enter the work programme and the related timescales for the claimant commitment? It is understood that the intent is that the claimant commitment would result from dialogue, although that does not necessarily mean total agreement in every case.

Amendment 51CCA would also have the claimant commitment set out information on how to challenge the contents of that commitment. The Minister in the other place indicated that appeals could arise only following sanctions for failure to comply and we will obviously be discussing those in due course. In respect of work search and availability requirements, the briefing note provided by the department indicated a right to object to what is proposed and an ability to have the position reviewed by another employment officer. However, that is stated not to apply to other requirements recorded in the claimant commitment. Why not?

The amendments yet to be spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, and the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, are concerned in an important way with those involved in drawing up the claimant commitment to make sure that they are appropriately trained. That must involve access to specialists to cover the multiplicity of situations that will be encountered, such as dealing with those with mental health conditions, fluctuating conditions and hidden disabilities, to name just some. Will the Minister remind us what information from the WCA or indeed the work-focused health-related assessment—he might update us on that because it was suspended for a while—will be before those who have responsibility for inputting into the claimant commitment? So far as the work programme is concerned, what contractual commitments do providers have in respect of training and how is that to be monitored?

These issues of claimant commitment are very important, but in the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, who is not with us today, we believe that co-production is an important issue. If there is to be real commitment for individuals, it should not be something that is imposed: the Secretary of State should have some ownership of it. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher]

I rise to speak to Amendments 51CB, 51CC, 71C and 71D on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, who sends his apologies to the Committee because he cannot be in his place today. It is a little unusual for me to speak to amendments on behalf of a Conservative Peer, but it is a pleasure to do so.

Before I refer to the comments of the noble Lord on these amendments, I would like to support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, in relation to the claimant commitment and the importance of that containing the responsibilities of the Secretary of State as well as the responsibilities of the claimants themselves, and the importance of specialist Jobcentre Plus staff. I will also speak about those two points in the next group. The groups were together but now they are apart.

The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, has given me his notes on these amendments, which I will try to reflect in my remarks. He says that we heard a lot on the Health and Social Care Bill about the myth that the Secretary of State for Health is in total control of the National Health Service. The situation is not very different in the DWP, is it, he asks. I emphasise the fact that the noble Lord said that because it is more interesting that he makes these comments than if I were to make them. We all know that, although technically it is the Secretary of State who is occasionally involved in tribunal and court cases, it is really one of his officers who does the work and occasionally is found to be at fault—or, says the noble Lord, in the case of the employment and support allowance, not so occasionally.

The noble Lord was alarmed to discover that for ESA alone, there have been around 518,000 fit-for-work decisions between October 2008, when it started, and November 2010. The rate of appeal was around 40 per cent and, in that percentage, 40 per cent were successful in their appeals. The reason for all those successful appeals is not solely the Atos computer; the desk officers and DWP staff generally share the blame, although perhaps not to the same extent. The noble Lord has, with difficulty, discovered the success rate of appeals against decisions relating to other benefits from April to August this year. They are 15 per cent for JSA and 27 per cent for income support. Those are probably the nearest thing we have to the universal credit arrangements in the Bill and they give us a guide to what we might expect, not least because the fault, if fault there is, will be with DWP staff rather than computers. This all brings us to the noble Lord’s amendments: it must be vitally important that staff are not only trained, which to some extent they are, but monitored as well. The 24th report of the Merits Committee also raises these issues.

I share those concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, but perhaps I might add a few remarks of my own. I am aware that the Minister has been determined to reduce the appeals success rate and that he has in fact had some considerable success. If I understand it correctly, this has been in part as a result of introducing a review process, prior to appeal hearings, which has enabled errors to be picked up earlier. Perhaps the Minister can explain the average length of time between the initial decision and the review decision following an appeal, and how that average time gap compares with that between a benefit entitlement decision and an appeal hearing, as we had them before the reviews came into play—we still have them, of course. In other words, has the introduction of the review process significantly improved the position for claimants by providing a significantly earlier opportunity to have wrong decisions righted or overturned? Also, does the Minister know what proportion of successful appeals, whether at review or ultimate appeal hearing, apply to claimants with mental health problems?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the form and content of the claimant commitment is of the utmost importance and we are working hard to get it right. I hope that the illustrative claimant commitments provided to noble Lords have proved helpful in this regard. We are introducing the claimant commitment to improve compliance, bringing together in one place a clear statement of the requirements a claimant is expected to meet. What we need to bear in mind is that the claimant commitment is for every recipient of universal credit, many of whom will not be subject to work-related requirements. For these individuals the contents of the claimant commitment will be minimal, including the duty only to report relevant change of circumstances. In this case, the amendments we are discussing would not be relevant.

Even for claimants who have work-related requirements placed on them, certain requirements are simply not open to negotiation. A claimant in the “all work-related requirements” group must look and be available for work. A claimant in the “work-focused interviews only” group must attend work-focused interviews. These very basic requirements are not open to negotiation. When establishing the detail of requirements, for example, and the type of work that someone has to look for, I agree completely that there should be dialogue and consultation between the adviser and the claimant. This is not to say that we will not be tough on some jobseekers but, for the majority, we expect this to be done in co-operation. If a claimant is unhappy with specific requirements, they will be able to ask for another adviser to review them. This happens now under jobseeker’s allowance; there will be an appropriate review procedure under universal credit as well.

The basic work requirements, which are not negotiable—such as that the jobseeker must look for work—clearly would not and could not be the subject of such a review requested by a claimant. Similarly, in terms of the support we provide, we envisage there being a wide range of support available to help claimants prepare for and move into work. It is intended to meet the needs of individuals and target the right support at the right time. The issue raised by both the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, of what we are doing for the hardest to help and on creaming and parking is one that we have endeavoured to answer in the structure of the work programme, where we are trying to deal with it by price differentiation.

We have minimum standards for prime providers. If they breach those it is treated as a breach of contract, so we do have some powerful tools. At the same time, we have much more active management provider performance than ever before, and to the extent that providers are under-performing, we will shift market share by claimant group to the best performing providers in each area. This means that claimants will be moved to where they are most likely to get the best support to help them deal with their particular barriers to work. These are systems that we have created within an overall black-box approach, which would clearly break down entirely if we then imported a series of regulations and requirements such as were implied by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie.

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[Baroness Meacher]

I very strongly support the comments of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, because it seems to me that we are talking about oiling the wheels and enabling the system to work. It seems to me that part of that is transparency to the claimant, which is the noble Lord's previous point, but also transparency for the provider. If I understood this right, the assessment and the clinical report on the claimants will not be provided to the provider, who then has to prepare all this activity to enable the person to return to work. If that is really so, I appeal to the Minister to take that back and think about it because I cannot see the system working.

[Lord Freud]

Let me clarify what information goes over. The former WCA is confidential and does not go over. How does the adviser build the revised requirements with the claimant? The evidence that he uses includes the claimant’s fit note, advice from Atos—not the former WCA, but some advice can go over—and other medical evidence. Those things come together to form the basis on which agreement is reached.

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Claimants with long-term mental health problems are often assessed without due consideration being given to the effect their condition has on their ability to perform in assessment. This not only sometimes leads to an inaccurate assessment, but might affect the morale of the claimant and damage their enthusiasm about the entire returning-to-work process. I do not think it is appreciated how difficult it can be for some people even to attend an interview at a job centre. I am aware of a case of a young woman suffering from agoraphobia and depression who was on the waiting list for therapy. Her condition left her unable to leave her home to see friends, work or even get out. On the day of her appointment her mother, who would normally accompany her, had to go out. The young woman was too anxious to call the job centre to let them know she could not come and, despite her mother’s later explanation, the adviser refused to accept that it was good cause and insisted that the young woman should have attended the interview alone. I think the Secretary of State must specifically address and demonstrate that he has addressed whether a health condition was in part responsible for a failure to comply, such as in the case of the young woman I have just mentioned, before applying sanctions. I trust that the Minister will see the wisdom behind these amendments. I beg to move.

[Baroness Meacher]

My Lords, I rise to speak briefly in support of Amendments 51CD, 51CE and 51FA and the related amendments concerning Clauses 44, 46, 49 and 56, which were all tabled by my noble friend Lady Hollins. As she said, they concern claimant commitment and sanctions. The objective of these amendments, as I understand them, is to ensure that claimants’ long-term conditions or impairments are understood by Jobcentre Plus. The claimant commitment ensures that the claimant’s problems are recognised and that the necessary adjustments are made and that when sanctions are being considered the likely impact of the health condition or impairment on the claimant’s failure to comply with some condition is fully taken into account.

I shall take these three points in turn. The first is the need for Jobcentre Plus to understand the long-term conditions and impairments of claimants. Here the training of staff is paramount. In view of the incredible range of disabilities to be dealt with and the precision of the assessments required, can the Minister confirm that people with mental health or learning difficulties will be dealt with by specialist Jobcentre Plus staff in those particular fields?

That has not been the case in the past, and the consequences have been absolutely appalling, yet the need for specialist knowledge will be even greater when this Bill comes into effect. I have referred in previous discussions around these issues to a conversation that I had with a Jobcentre Plus manager about people’s mental health problems. When I asked that manager what happened to those people, he said, “Oh, my staff don’t understand mental health problems”. I said, “Well, so what happens when someone with a mental health problem comes in seeking help?”. He said, “We can’t really help them, so what happens is that they become homeless and then they go back into hospital, and so then they get some help, and the process starts again”. That is such a statement about the failures of the past, and the reasons why I fear that with all this precision about what everybody has to do things will be very much worse for this group in future. We know that an awful lot of these people will fall into jobseeker’s allowance—and we know what happens then.

Many case histories have been sent to me, and no doubt to many other noble Lords, which illustrate the impossibility of the task and the consequences of mistakes being made. I want to quote one case to illustrate the point. Just as my noble friend referred to a case where a person had been given nul points—no points—I am also aware of somebody with a mental health condition assessed with no points a year ago. This person was placed on JSA and failed to cope with the conditions; her health deteriorated and she was reassessed and given 33 points. There is something terribly wrong about that. This lady, who was solely concerned to get back into work, complained that she had lost a year of her life. When she could have been getting the support that she needed and getting back into work, she has been sitting there deteriorating. This error, as I see it anyway, probably cost the taxpayer a year of benefits. That is one of my concerns. I have absolute respect for the intentions, and certainly the intentions of the Minister, but the fine-tuning on all these things will not work. I cannot see it working.

In that context, I support the comment of my noble friend Lady Hollins in asking for a medical opinion in relation to these complex cases. We are all aware that psychiatrists and their teams spend weeks and weeks assessing a person and their needs and what the problems really are—and even then they get it wrong sometimes. So how somebody in a single interview who does not have the experience or skill can do that job is really pushing it, I would suggest. That is not quite the language for this House, but I could say much more on that issue—and no doubt we will come back to it on Report.

I move on to the importance of the claimant commitment and recognising the claimant’s problems. The first step is for the Jobcentre Plus to understand—we have dealt with that. The next step is for something to be done about those problems. Here it seems to me that for claimants with mental health problems who are not under a secondary mental health trust—they are a different group altogether and I shall not talk about them here—but the million or so who are under a GP or not receiving any help at all, who are assessed as appropriate for RAG due to a mental health disorder, usually caused by anxiety or depression, it is surely vital that the claimant commitment includes very clearly the requirement that the person should be referred to a professional therapy or health service. IAPT is an obvious choice for many of these people, but not all of them. But my point is that it should be very clear in the claimant commitment—and this takes us back to the responsibility of the Secretary of State—that there is that responsibility there for the referral to be made. My concern is that this very substantial group will finish up with these providers, who probably will not have any real understanding of these kinds of issues.

They will quite likely refer these people to a rather cheap option. I know that they will have £14,000, which is wonderful, but you wonder what they might want to spend that money on. If these people are referred to a cheap or inappropriate option, they will not get back into work. Something relatively simple like a requirement that a therapy or health service that a person requires should be specified in the claimant commitment could transform a system from an incredibly ineffective one to one that would effectively get people back into work.

I know that the Minister has high hopes for Professor Harrington's work, and I share his optimism to some extent, having played a very peripheral role in that work. However, I do not believe that Professor Harrington's work will address the issue that I am raising here. His work should improve the quality of the assessments, particularly of mentally ill people and those with fluctuating disorders, but as I understand it, it will not at all ensure that the right help is available to this very large group of claimants. The whole edifice will fail if this crucial link is missing.

Another issue that I want to touch on is the need to take full account of the claimant's condition in considering sanctions following a failure to fulfil one of the benefit conditions, such as a failure to attend an interview, work-related activity and so forth. I was going to mention the agoraphobic claimant to whom my noble friend Lady Hollins referred. The crucial point is something that the Minister said a little earlier: everybody must attend interviews. They must do this and must do that. In my view, an agoraphobic claimant could not do anything realistically except, with help, get along to get their treatment—professional treatment, not a cheap option. If that happened, and their symptoms were brought under control, you could then start talking about other things that that person should do.

I understand the Minister's point about needing eight processes or whatever, but for some claimants it is vital to stick with the first one until that is done. Otherwise, sanctions will be applied completely inappropriately and destructively. It will not help. In fact, it would make things a lot worse. The extent of errors is well illustrated by the fact that 29 per cent of those in the work-related activity group are placed there only after reconsideration on appeal having originally been found fit for work. For 29 per cent of people, they get it wrong in the first place. The suffering those people go through is appalling.

I was struck by the level of fear in the voice of the carer who is herself a service user at a recent meeting of our service users and carers in east London. She had just attended a reassessment and said that it was terrifying. She said, “He had no idea about my disability”, and had no idea about her responsibilities to her mentally ill son. Under the new system, a claimant can obtain a report from a healthcare professional of their choice. That is great progress. However, there are major concerns, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.